


Coming in to Follow-Through

by Project0506



Series: ARC Design [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24053935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Hevy and Cutup are ready for ARC certification, Droidbait can see that same as anybody.  Same as he can see that he isn't ready, and no one quite knows what to do about it.
Series: ARC Design [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700914
Comments: 42
Kudos: 487





	Coming in to Follow-Through

They’re having trouble finding a technique for Droidbait.

Droidbait loses his feet, feels that chilly, dipping feeling in his gut as the mat disappears. He catches air for only a fraction of a second, slams back down shoulder leaning and rolling to his knees. The Captain holds an attack pose but doesn’t move in.

No one would have to _say_ it. Droidbait has eyes and it’s plain as the readout on a P1 HUD. They tell him anyway, first in the hundreds of times they have him repeat tactics with small tweaks each time. They tell him in the third time they change styles, the wrinkle of confusion in Echo’s brow, the dissatisfaction tightening Lt Jesse’s lips. The more and more increasing vicious determination in Fives’ eyes.

Droidbait pushes to his feet settles into a stance he’d spent weeks with Echo learning. It still feels unnatural, but it’s no worse than any of the others. The Captain doesn’t move. Droidbait’s not sure what to make of that. He’s seen him spar with Fives and Echo, and with Hevy when they’re going through the phase of training that supposed to wring you out and keep you down. The Captain is unrelenting in his attacks.

He waits. Droidbait makes the first lunge. Low, feint to high, slip to the side to try to come up where he can get an opening past the Captain’s arm.

The Captain slams into him low on his right pectoral, shoulder leading, and Droidbait loses his feet. He twists as he hits the mat and just manages to avoid slamming his head against it. He lets momentum keep him going to his knees. The Captain waits.

No one would have had to tell Droidbait that they’re having trouble finding something that works for him. They did anyway, one after the other in quick, casual conversations. None of them seemed too concerned; Lt Jesse seemed more curious than anything, and Echo and Fives think they’ll find _something_ eventually.

But eventually is starting to creep up against the next ARC training cycle and Droidbait _doesn’t_ want to panic or worse. Feel jealous.

The Captain’s attention follows him, but he doesn’t shift when Droidbait does. That moment of shuffling to keep face, that would be enough maybe, Droidbait thinks. When his weight is on his non-dominant foot, Droidbait could shake him out of his stance. Cutup would be able to do it, at least.

Cutup is fast and vicious and the kind of dirty fighter that makes Lt Jesse grin like it’s Lifeday. When he hits it _hurts_ , every single time, a nerve-cluster kind of hurt that you can’t brush off as easy as a bruise. Lt Jesse trains him to be faster and Echo trains him to be more precise.

Hevy wouldn’t need to trick him into a mistake. He could hit down the center, push through, and throw the Captain off balance that way. Hevy’s stamina outdoes even Fives’, and he spars with the Captain regularly now, just to wear him out.

Hevy and Cutup are ready, and no one can figure out what to do with Droidbait.

The Captain doesn’t shift to square with Droidbait, won’t, wouldn’t give him that opening. Droidbait takes the attack anyway. Low, no feint. He’s not fast enough to change course when the Captain’s opposite knee comes up. He lunges, not enough not quite enough, but enough to take the hit under his ear instead of at his temple. He keeps his teeth apart to release the pressure, rolls with the hit to his knee, scrambles out of range of a follow-up attack that doesn’t come. Where’s the Captain’s follow-through? He’s known for them; they’re brutal.

Droidbait can’t dodge at the last second and turn an opponent’s attack into an opening like Cutup does. He can’t wear his opponents down like Hevy can. Droidbait’s _good_ , he’s gotten so much better in the last three months. But he’s not ARC good and he can’t quite hold on to everyone else’s optimism that they’ll find him something too.

Droidbait doesn’t _want_ to feel that chilly, dipping feeling in his gut. But Hevy and Cutup are ready, and they’ll either leave Droidbait behind or they’ll have to hold back an entire cycle. Neither of them would blame him, probably. Or at least neither of them would blame him any more than he would blame himself.

He doesn’t think about tactics this time. A stupid kind of thing that only an idiot would do against someone like the Captain. But Droidbait’s just not _good enough_ at anything for it to matter. He goes in, off-center, off-balance but the result isn’t any _worse_ for it. Droidbait grits a snarl, twists and lands heavily on his knee. He pushes up to stand.

That anything good came of _Domino_ was a karking miracle. That lightning struck four times in remarkable precision was nothing short of impossible. He thinks maybe someone’s figured out they’re all out of miracles, and maybe bringing the Captain in for Droidbait is their last-ditch effort to salvage him. Lt Jesse had only sparred with him for half an hour before he’d called the Captain down.

“You see it?” He’s still here, the Lt. Tucked high and far back in the bleachers. Watching. Droidbait had forgotten. Echo had left for his duty shift. Fives took both the others to run drills before cooldown, but the Lt had stayed behind. “Or am I crazy?”

The Captain clicks his tongue, cuts a look to the Lt that Droidbait doesn’t understand but they do.

“Yeah fuck you too sir. But you see it?”

“I see it,” the Captain agrees. “But I’m not going to give him the answer.”

Droidbait knows the smile he makes isn’t right, isn’t proper. It doesn’t faze the Captain.

“You’re almost there.” Droidbait wants nothing more than to believe him. He’s lost count of how many times he’s been flung today, and he still wants to believe that the Captain thinks there’s something here. “You’re almost there trooper. Jesse saw it two hours ago. You’ve been inching closer ever since. You _know_ it.”

“I don’t know _shit_.”

Lt Jesse whistles, low. Droidbait flushes hot and disgusting down his throat. He swallows. “Sir.” An apology for his behavior, but not the thought.

That too, doesn’t touch the Captain’s composure. It wouldn’t. Nothing does, everyone knows that.

“If you need me to push more, I can do that,” he says calmly. “If slow isn’t working for you. Jesse.”

“If you break anything on him, you’re the one telling Kix,” Lt Jesse says. But he moves, drops from the bleachers and comes in close. Intervention range. Droidbait’s breath stutters in his chest.

The Captain waits for him to tap out. Droidbait’s always the one surrendering first. He smiles with grit teeth.

“Begin,” Lt Jesse calls.

The Captain moves first. Droidbait meets him in the middle, instinct moving him more than tactical planning. Feint, dodge, reach-

The force that hits his chest is more than anything so far this spar. It’s force alone, not redirected momentum that sends him flying this time. Airborne, and his lungs feel it’s ice running through them and he doesn’t think.

“Hold!”

Droidbait holds. He’d already rolled up on one knee and was partway to moving forward.

“Fuck, Captain.”

Droidbait blinks white from his eyes. Lt Jesse is grinning.

“He was right. Slow was just letting him overthink,” the Captain decides. He’s not even breathing hard. It makes Droidbait angry.

“Self-check Corporal,” Lt Jesse reminds. “Anything broken?”

“No sir.” The Captain shoots him a politely disapproving look, and Droidbait ducks his head. Runs through the mental checks on the list they’ve all memorized, tightens muscles and twitches limbs. _Checks_ first, then answers. “No sir. No breaks.”

“Good,” the Captain says. “Again.” And doesn’t wait for confirmation.

Droidbait had forms and techniques drilled into him on Kamino, pounded into him the last three months. He doesn’t think, _can’t_ think about which to use when, the Captain moves too fast to allow that.

Droidbait takes a hit to the ribs. He goes flying. Lt doesn’t call hold. _Lt doesn’t call hold_. He lands and rolls, gets a knee under him and turns it into a lunge. Arm leading, dead center, low center-mass. The Captain dodges.

The Captain _moves_ and there’s a heartbeat when he doesn’t have his weight settled on both feet. Droidbait misses his hit, lets it take him into a roll, twists with it. He lands behind the Captain on one knee and his push to standing is an attack aimed at the Captain’s back.

He doesn’t have anywhere to go to be able to dodge the spin kick that lands in his side, just under his elbow.

“ _Hold_.”

Droidbait can’t catch his breath from that. He has a knee under him but he can’t remember how to make the other work. Droidbait’s arm goes out from under him and he goes down. It didn’t take much; his arm was shaking so much his teeth clattered with it.

“ _That’s_ what we’re looking for.”

Fingers press at the top of his spine, palm cups around the curve of neck-to-back, heel pressing down in that hollow between his shoulders. Droidbait can’t think of anything else.

“Sir.”

“Hold, trooper.” For a long moment he doesn’t say anything. Droidbait’s breath rattles in his throbbing chest. There’s no piercing pain that he remembers from the times past he’s broken ribs. “Keep your head to the floor,” the Captain finally orders. “Get your elbows under you, level with your shoulders. Hands under your forehead. Keep everything else flush to the mat. Hold.”

The Captain moves, presses a knee up against Droidbait’s shoulder. He doesn’t need the leverage, he’s not moving into a distress position. This position takes no effort at all.. But it’s better anyway. Takes pressure off his chest.

“Sir.”

“Not yet.” It’s too gentle for a rebuke. “Listen, and hold position.” The Captain has one hand braced to the mat in Droidbait’s sights. His fingers are long; gunner’s hands. The hand on his back climbs up to wrap around Droidbait’s head, presses his head firmly against the mat.

He doesn’t know why he pushes back. He doesn’t want to disobey, hasn’t even thought of it but. But he is, he’s pushing back against that hand when the Captain had told him to keep his head to the mat.

His head doesn’t move.

“I have you,” the Captain says, presses down and that was what Droidbait didn’t know he was looking for. His ankles go lax, his feet turn out flat, his hips drop. All he has to do is focus on keeping his shoulders level and his head on the mat.

“Not broken,” Lt Jesse says, and it’s only then that Droidbait notices the cold press of a scanner to the center of his back. “But he’s done for today.”

The Captain hums an agreement and Droidbait feels it rumble all through him.

“Good. Good Droidbait, this is what we need to see from you. If you can’t dodge a hit, don’t. Take it, roll with the force and come up under it. We’ll have to teach you how to come up _over_ it as well, so you don’t get too predictable.” He pauses. Huffs a laugh. “Anakin will be _thrilled_.”

Lt Jesse scoffs, but Droidbait can still hear the smile in it. “ _Just_ as we managed to talk him out of the flashier ones too.”

The Captain sighs, slips down to press heel and fingers to either side of Droidbait’s neck. “ _All_ of them,” he says and Droidbait doesn’t understand. The Lt does.

“Must have slipped something in their tanks, Captain, I swear. That _whole batch_ …”

Droidbait stirs. “Keep holding,” the Captain orders. “I will walk you through stretches when you’re ready.” Captain Rex holds a warm guard beside him, his hand rests loosely against his neck. He and the Lt bicker softly and Droidbait breathes in the quiet.

He’s still not sure if what he did was an actual technique. It was nothing like the forms they’re taught, felt more like brawling and tumbling and a soup pot of mixed pieces of tactics pasted together so fast there’s no way to analyze them first.

But he got the Captain to have to dodge, and he’s never done that against even Lt Jesse before. He doesn’t see what the officers do, but he thinks he can believe the Captain does. For now that’s enough for Droidbait.


End file.
